Roman Catholic leaders are sounding the alarm on Democrat presumptive presidential nominee Kamala Harris' record of "anti-Catholic bigotry," with one calling her the "greatest threat to the free exercise of religion" if she were to become president.
From her time serving as California attorney general and then U.S. senator, Harris has a record of targeting "people of faith and pro-life citizens for their beliefs," CatholicVote President Brian Burch told The Washington Times.
Burch aggregated a few of Harris' leanings, policy stances that Burch asserts show that Harris' "version of being a Catholic is a Catholic who surrender their core beliefs." According to CatholicVote:
- 2015: Harris pushed California FACT Act, a law that forced pregnancy centers to tell vulnerable women where they could get free abortions. The Supreme Court struck it down in 2018.
- 2016: As California AG, Harris ordered a raid on Center for Medical Progress' David Daleiden, a pro-life activist who claimed that Planned Parenthood was trafficking organs and tissue from aborted children.
- 2017: Harris was co-sponsor of the Equality Act, which would "run roughshod over religious liberty."
- 2019: Then-Sen. Harris introduced the "Do No Harm Act," a law that would force doctors to perform abortions and transgender surgeries.
"Since the day she stepped into public life, Kamala Harris has epitomized gross incompetence, corruption and shameless bigotry that have become the mark of hard-left politicians," Burch told the Times. "She has specifically targeted people of faith and pro-life citizens for their beliefs and defense of the most defenseless in our society."
It's also Burch who wrote that Harris "has a history of anti-Catholic bigotry."
Wrote Kenneth Craycraft, professor of moral theology at Mount St. Mary's Seminary, "Kamala Harris would be the greatest threat to the free exercise of religion than any president in American history, with no close rival."
"Kamala Harris has not hidden her intention to institute policies against the Catholic Church, and against individuals, organizations, and institutions whose beliefs, positions, and policies are consistent with the moral theology of the Church," Craycraft added in a separate post.
Harris, a Baptist, is on record more than once saying that women choosing to get an abortion "does not require anyone to abandon their faith or their beliefs," according to Catholic News Agency. Ed Whelan, a distinguished senior fellow and the Antonin Scalia Chair in Constitutional Studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., called Harris' stance "outrageous."
"Kamala Harris has no business using her government position to tell Americans how their faith should inform their views on legal protections for the unborn," Whelan told Catholic News Agency in 2022.
Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
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